hidden veg

I properly love these muffins. They look and taste like a treat plus they have a cup of parsnip in them…….and you can’t tell!! At least my son can’t and that’s all I’m looking for really. I love parsnip for it’s easy ability to hide, I cook it, purée it and stir it into a lot of our meals so discovering it also hides well in baking has been a massive thrill. If you are parent trying to persuade your kids to eat more veg or you’re trying to eat more yourself these muffins are fab. I bake these with eggs as my son passed his baked egg challenge this year so I try to feed him baked egg regularly. They can be baked without but they’ll be best eaten fresh or gently reheated (20 seconds in the microwave per muffin to freshen it up). They probably don’t need as long as 22 minutes to bake but despite over 6 months of my son eating baked egg I’m still a little terrified of it and bake the muffins till they are really really baked!

Dairy free chocolate chips to taste. I like to use Plamil or I’ve used a small packet of chocolate orange buttons broken up with great success. You don’t need loads as the muffins are sweet but I won’t judge if you do use loads. A small handful is a good guide.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180C and grease a 12 cup muffin tray

Measure flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sugar & salt and whisk together in a large bowl

Combine the remaining wet ingredients in a jug or bowl and mix well

Make a Well in the dry ingredients and pour the wet mix into the bowl. Stir until combined then add in the grated parsnip and the chocolate chips

I like to use an ice cream scoop to measure the mix equally but a spoon will also work. Divide into the 12 muffin holes of your pre prepared tin (I bake straight in the tin as the baked muffins often stick to paper cases, you can pop them into cases once the muffins are baked if you so desire.

Bake for 22 minutes then remove from the oven. Once the tin is cool enough to handle gently remove the muffins (I slide a flat teaspoon in the edge of the muffin cups and they lift out easily) and place on a wire rack to cool.

Best eaten the day you bake them but also good the next day with warm custard or gently warmed in the microwave. The muffins freeze well and can be defrosted one at a time on low in the microwave for 1 minute.

If you don’t need to be gluten free use plain flour and omit the xanthan gum.

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup sunflower oil

1/4 cup apple sauce (I use baby purée)

1 cup grated/processed veg (I used one carrot, one parsnip & one courgette which yielded about 2 cups)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1/3 cup dairy free milk

Icing

60g Creamy Violife

2 tablespoons dairy free spread (I used Vitalite)

1 cup icing sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180C and line 2 mini muffin tins (24 muffins each) with paper cases. I think these would be lovely without cases baked in a greased mini muffin tin but the cases disguise the veg better!

Wash/peel/chop the carrot, parsnip and courgette and whiz them in a food processor until finely chopped. If you don’t have a food processor you could grate them. I sometimes make soup or veg to put in shepherd’s pie at the same and keep a cupful for the muffins.

Measure out and sift the flour, xanthan gum, bicarbonate of soda,baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger into a large bowl and whisk well to combine.
In another bowl combine the veg, oil, apple sauce, vanilla extract, cider vinegar and dairy free milk then stir in the sugar.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just moistened then measure by teaspoonful into the prepared tins.

Bake one tray at a time for 12 minutes, allow to cool for a few minutes in the tray (until it’s cool enough to handle) then transfer to a cooling rack.

While the muffins are cooling make the icing.

Mix the creamy Violife and the dairy free spread together (I used my mixer) then slowly add the icing sugar and mix till smooth. The icing is quite runny, if you’d like it to be thicker add another half cup of icing sugar. There will be enough to ice at least half the muffins depending on how many you plan to freeze. Any extra can be stored in the fridge and (if you are anything like me) eaten on any biscuit/cake/loaf you like or just by the spoonful.

Once the muffins are cool you can ice them either with a spoonful on top or piped on but as it’s very soft it doesn’t hold a shape. Iced muffins should be stored in the fridge. Muffins can be frozen until you remember you have some. I should probably say 3 months but I found some I made about 6 months ago and they were grand defrosted and iced!

I’m always looking for ways to get more vegetables into my children. One will willingly eat carrots and sweet corn (but not baby corn) and the other will eat broccoli and any kind of corn. Both like baked beans but I’m not sure they really count. They are also weird with potato. They’ll eat it on top of shepherds pie, roasted or potato smiley faces (which are a safe option for us! How cool is that?) but look at mashed potato on their plates like I’m trying to poison them. I feed them fish cakes made with mashed potato and extra veg purely for my own amusement. I do a lot of crazy mummy laughing in my head when they demolish them!

I don’t have a set recipe as it’s a great thing to make with leftovers so amounts differ. Also I made enough for 8 hungry people last night (to feed 4) so I’m not really to be trusted with amounts.

Usually I make fish cakes with left over mashed potato, a tin of tuna, a tin of sweet corn and some gluten free flour. Depending on how seasoned your potatoes were you can add salt & pepper and lemon juice to the mix.

Last night I had a large cooked salmon fillet to use so I boiled 6 large potatoes in a huge pot till soft then mashed them with a splodge of Vitalite and some salt and pepper. I boiled 2 carrots and parsnips then blended them and mixed them into the mash. If you were using tuna this would not be a good way to hide carrot as the mix was a bit orange! When my daughter commented on the colour I said it was the pink salmon she could see….

I then added a cup of gluten free flour to the potato mix, removed the skin from the cooked salmon, flaked the fish with a fork and stirred it in. I seasoned with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

How to

Heat a large frying pan on a high heat (I used 8 on my induction hob) with enough oil to cover the base.

Take the fish/potato mix by the handful and shape into a pattie. Could make smaller ones for little kids.

Coat the pattie in a light dusting of gluten free flour by sitting it on a plate of flour then gently turning it to coat the other side.

Place gently in the pan using a spatula to avoid splashing yourself with hot oil. Fry for approximately 2 minutes on each side until golden (also known as not too pale, not burnt). I cooked 4 at a time and prepared the next batch while they were cooking.

If you are making masses you can keep them warm in the oven till they are all cooked. Let them cool a little before giving them to children.

When it’s just me and the kids I serve the fish cakes with lemon juice and a big blob of tomato ketchup for dipping but we went posh last night since it was salmon and had extra veg. 2 fish cakes was ample for the kids. I ate 3 but would have been fine with 2!